


How Death Found A Girl

by tigereyes45



Series: The Seven Gods Tales [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Go Arya!, Other, Supernatural - Freeform, i don't know what else to put, someone powerful comes along and takes over, spirits memories don't stay long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 13:05:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16368188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigereyes45/pseuds/tigereyes45
Summary: Death meets everyone but remembers few. Even fewer actually worship or call on Death, even though it is one of the few forces with a name in every religion. So when a girl not only calls on Death's name every night but spots Death on the battlefield she is not so easily forgotten.The third part of my Seven Gods Series. You don't need to have read the others before reading this one.





	How Death Found A Girl

The Stranger was a force many feared. Few thought of the god unless death was close for them, and even less ever pray to the Stranger for anything. The occasional soul would ask for their soul not to be taken or for one of their enemies to be stolen away. Sometimes a believer of the seven would step into the doors of the many-faced god. One that the Stranger felt was one of the same with themselves.

“You’re both dead.” The voice of a young girl whispers. A girl far too young to understand, let alone, revere death. Her voice was strong, knowing, and the Stranger had never known a little girl to understand. Once a girl prayed to death the same way a man in black did once. With a list of names spoken every night. The man had one, but the girl had many. Always adding and occasionally taking a name from the list. It was never empty, and could never feel be full. The same way as death itself will never be hungry yet never satisfied.

This young child stares up at the stranger that she followed for years, her eyes were absent of fear. Immediately the stranger thought her foolish. Only the foolish and stupid look at death like that. Turning away the stranger and the many-faced god take their form to go. A wave of their hand, a moment of breath, death moves on. No matter the name, though, or even attempt against them, they eventually reach everybody and carry everyone away. Every living thing has their strength quelled by shadowy hands. In every belief they are there, personified in songs ages old.

They had left behind the girl then. Left her knowing that they would meet again.

The next time the girl finds death it is not so direct. They are dressed differently now, and instead of meeting the force face to face she skirts by. With her needle in hand sneaking through a camp filled with the bodies of men much taller and stronger than she. This was a battlefield and it gave no living person a chance to take in what might be lurking. They collect the dead and watch as she crosses, dancing back and forth between the two possible exits. Between her hundred possible escapes. Death approached but did not take her that night. Instead, it watched her with a new realization.

One day this girl will be death.

Partly before she dies and for many years later.

Death left that night, many hours after the girl was gone. A parade of newcomers following them as the path was made. Tonight a battle was raged and all those souls could now rest. Death only takes them so far. A frozen path made of stones greets and guides them the rest of their way.

The next time the girl saw death from a ledge on a rather large hill. A dog laid down in front of death’s path. It’s bark still loud enough to reach the girl above them. Her eyes pear down. A piercing gray pair of clouds looking down. The dog knew his time was coming, it had been for a long time, yet the girl did not seem phased. Slowly she climbed down from her spot. At a crawling speed that made death wonder if the dog would die before she reached him.

It doesn’t. Once she arrives he growls and snaps, and snarls. Telling her to go, lies of what he would have done if he had just made slightly different choices, mocking her prayer to death, everything to make her run. Death wonders why the girl does not go right away. Death was here to take one name from her list, yet she lingered still. Did she want to watch him go? Death doesn’t know. She stays far longer than the other times. She doesn’t yell back or even kicks the dog while he’s down. Whispering something to him that death did not quite catch. Before she stands. As she wanders off a grey mist befitting of her eyes fills death’s gaze.

The final time death ever noticed the girl was not as she was with those who worship them as the many-faced god. It was not as a house disappeared and joined the ranks of the dead in one fell swoop. Nor was it when an assassin was killed and hanged. Their blood dripping slowly over the hold of a house. A warning. To those who would try to travel north. So Death went. Although their eyes had not met during any of those events that transpired, Death remembers them. Death knows the girl had a hand in them but had never spotted the lithe cat.

When Death went North they took many southerners with them. A march to protect the precious city that ruled them all that cost many of their lives, as even the citizens of the royal city slowly starve. Death’s conscious was there and in the far north where frozen men killed their warm-blooded brothers. With their journey down they had added and taken many from Death’s door. A welcomed thing at first, but with their trip they had taken more and more from them. An act that Death was not so pleased with. After all, a job must be done.

Death stands in the field on the eve of the girl’s last day. War was fought at a castle covered in snow, with spots of it’s melted, black brick, peaking out in places. Many souls escaped but more had fallen. The girl had spotted death during the fight. This time she did not repeat her teacher’s saying, “Not today”. The girl looked out after meeting’s death eyes and knew that this day may well be her in. So instead she turns back at the monsters who roamed about the lands of her birth. Steadying herself on top of a dire wolf, the size of one of the castle’s rooms, the girl points her sword at the closest enemy and shouted, “It will not be you!”. Death had to admit while they were there for the collection of souls it had been a sight that held them in awe. Rarely does a warrior with such a way of fighting last that long against so many enemies.

If they cared for decor they would find the pure white snow a beautiful field that hid all the hallmarks of battle underneath. As if this blanket could keep history hidden. Perhaps it could if winter was permanent here. When Death thinks back they remember a human coming forth. With him the first summer of the north had been seen. A soul that killed many and was a father too much more than himself. His soul was a burning black that made Death wince at the sight of it. Sounds of swords clashing alerts them to the girl’s presence. Would her soul be as black as his? Or would it match the snow? If death had to guess, it would be overwhelming.

Someone so easily able to spy them in the midst of battle. That was the first overwhelming thing Death had faced in a long time. She wielded her sword as skilled as the warrior, and had a fire in her Death had only seen in the red priestesses before. The way she dove and parry those who got too close to the Southern-born, north boy with dark hair was as precise and quick as the mother’s protectiveness over her children. Yet when the mortals who fell watched her with Death they all had one thought. She is their instrument. Of all her characteristics it was her lack of response to the dead that struck them the oddest. Even those who have encountered them before always have a response. Yet the girl would do little more than a glance or occasionally glare, before returning to cutting down whatever was in front of her.

The sound of metal clashing against dragonstone echoes over the field. This time it was quicker than before, more ferocity behind it. Death crosses the field in a moment and finds themselves in front of the source. In the crypts where many of the dead had risen and fallen in their stones once more. Limbs scattered about as a cornered girl climbs on top of the stone man that looks quite like her. A father, uncle, brother? It could have been any of those, or none at all. Humans were so intertwined and disconnected all at the same time after all. Who knew why she stood her back to their feet, as more white walkers file in and surround her. As spears are deflected and launched into all the space around her they leave the girl with little room to maneuver. As the situation grows beyond dire she shouts out a name and a wish. As a sword pierced through her leg the girl pulled out a bottle of green liquid. With one last look around she opens the bottle and pours it out on the head of white walkers and their undead.

Cold gray eyes look at the bottle and swishes it around to see just a little bit left. It was then death realized how this girl would die. It stands back in the shadow of a stone woman. The girl met death’s eyes then, and in two swift moments had drunk the last of the bottle's contents and swung her thin sword so roughly against the stone man’s leg that a spark was made. In moments every living being in the crypts was on fire. Even when met by death the girl was defiant and refused to go alone. One aspect Death did not share with her.

They found her soul outside of the crypts, playing in the yard of the former castle.“Are you The Stranger, The God of many faces, or are you simply death?” The girl asked as the souls walk closer to her. All silent in their presence. “Who was right?” The girl asks and Death was silent again. She throws her sword around pointing at the spirit. “Answer me!”

Death offers their hand knowing the girl would take it instead of joining the ranks behind them. When her small hand fell in place Death knew why she had been able to see them so clearly. “Today.” Death whispers as the girl disappears.

* * *

Or perhaps that is just one way Death met the girl. Perhaps that is only one way she died and joined them. In another way, she could have lived longer, happier, and not been so intimate with her time, but in this life that was what death knew. The girl who would go back and find the Smith in the guise of the Stranger. A costume she wears lazily at the chance to reach the last people she had called out for in her most private of moments. The ones who bodies she burned with herself in those crypts as the human walls all came down all around the world at once. The girl, death now knew as Arya Stark, and if they had known her spirit would be so powerful and overwhelming just maybe they would not have taken her so soon.


End file.
